“We have to win a game against a great team away from home. If we’re not capable, then we should start our vacation.”LARRY BROWN

AUBURN HILLS – The Pistons, viewed as favorites to come out of the East when the playoffs began, are on their last breath, ready to be expunged tonight one round earlier than last spring.

In the past two playoffs, the Pistons have not beaten the Nets at the Meadowlands in four tries. Last week, they sustained two blowout losses, by 18 and 15 points, respectively.

Now they must recover from Friday’s triple-overtime classic at The Palace. The 127-120 defeat marked the Pistons’ third straight loss to the Nets.

“We know what’s ahead of us,” Piston coach Larry Brown said. “We’ve got a pretty big challenge to still take his series. We have to win a game on the road. It’s been done before. We have to win a game against a great team away from home. If we’re not capable, then we should start our vacation.”

Eighty-three percent of teams who’ve won Game 5 of a 2-2 series have gone on to win.

“We’ve got to do what they did,” said Ben Wallace, who missed eight free throws Friday before fouling out in the first OT. “We got to win on the road. You don’t have time to dwell on losses.”

Added Chauncey Billups, he of the 43-foot miracle shot that begat Friday’s overtimes, “I think this just makes us a lot hungrier.”

“You still have to hold your head up,” said Rasheed Wallace, who limped and grimaced through 48 minutes in Friday’s four-hour marathon. “It’s not over. We have to go there Sunday. We know what we got to do. They know what we’re going to come to do, so it’s going to be a good one.”

Wallace could be playing his last game as a Piston. A second-round KO could increase the likelihood he’d look elsewhere this summer as a free agent. Brown called Wallace’s effort “pretty incredible.”

Said Wallace, “It doesn’t matter how bad my foot is because, bleep, if I keep worrying about my foot, it’s going to heal when my butt is home this summer.”

“We got to get our minds right and play ball,” said Mike James, the Amityville native, one of the team’s spokesmen. “This is where your heart is tested. You can’t get discouraged, you can’t get down on yourself. You got be ready to fight. It’s going to be a war Sunday. Whoever’s not ready for it has got to sit down. We have to continue to keep our swagger.”

Billups’ heave at the fourth-quarter buzzer tied the score, a shot that came after the Pistons had missed 10 straight shots.

But Billups was uneven in the overtimes and finished shooting 9 of 29. He had one last chance to tie the score with 10 seconds left in the third OT after Lindsay Hunter’s steal of the inbounds. Down three Billups pulled up at the 3-point line and hit the back iron.